Hello there! It’s Ivan again. 😀

In our previous articles, we talked about the basics of NFTs and blockchain, as well as smart contracts, minting, and gas fees. Now it’s time to introduce you to Web3 and Metaverse!

Web3 – A Giant Leap for Mankind

Web3 is the next evolution of the internet. In the early days of the internet, there was no web at all. There was just the internet.

Only computer geeks and application developers knew how to use the internet. Before the web, we had primordial social media applications such as America Online and Compuserve that were walled in, so to speak. You couldn’t surf between them.

The world’s first web browser called “Mesh” was launched in 1989.

Mesh would later come to be known as the World Wide Web. Web1, if you will, allowed the few to share information with the many. The few were anyone who had the resources to build a website. The many were the people who used the websites.

Web2 brought new kinds of websites that actually helped people make their own web pages and publish or broadcast their own content. This is collectively referred to as user-generated content. Web2 applications include things like podcasts, blogs, social media sites, video-sharing sites, and the like.

An important aspect of Web1 and Web2 is that if you wanted to exchange value of any kind you had to go through banks.

Unfortunately, banks take their time making transactions happen while also taking a cut of the action. Web3 is being built on top of Web2 and blockchains. It will give people the ability to exchange value directly with each other without the need for banks.

Moreover, it gives people the ability to exchange not just money but also NFTs.

Web3 can be thought of as the decentralized web. Websites are, for the most part, hosted by companies that can censor or take them down at any time.

However, smart contracts can be used to build applications that run in a distributed fashion on a decentralized network that’s owned by no one. No corporation, no government, and no hacker can censor them or shut them down.

Not all websites of the future will be considered Web3.

However, those that do take advantage of the possibilities of Web3 will have far more benefits than your everyday Web2 Website.

Welcome to the Metaverse

One particular place where NFTs come in handy, so to speak, is in what’s called the metaverse. Metaverses are virtual worlds where users can build imaginary lands and entire cities where people can explore, congregate, and interact.

Metaverses are like video game worlds. Only the people who use them decide what’s in them and what to do inside them.

You can play poker with your friends, have a virtual business meeting, go on a virtual date, go to a concert, or watch a movie together. In many of these virtual worlds, users can collect possessions that help them on their adventures.

These might be assets such as coins, clothing, armor, weapons, magic spells, or anything else we can imagine. All these things can possess particular properties and powers. However, there has always been one drawback to meta-verses. That is, if the game goes away, all the users’ hard-won possessions go away with it.

Moreover, possessions in cyber‐space had no way of being ported from one metaverse to another.

In the real world, you can take your Hot Wheels cars or Barbie dolls and make up your own game. You can collect and display them. You can use them in imaginary battles if you want. You can even sell them to someone else if you choose to.

However, until blockchain-powered metaverses came along, simple actions like this were impossible in the digital world.

Here is one example: if you buy a CryptoKittie and the game goes away, you still own a collectible item that can be sold on any NFT marketplace. You could even invent your own game that uses CryptoKitties.

NFTs and communities

Here is another example: if you are an artist, you should b aware that there are people who spend time playing in metaverses and who are building entire worlds. They need the art as much if not more than anything else. They need murals, paintings, photographs, fashion, music, movies, avatars, and so much more.

As you now know, NFTs can be minted for all of these items.

Let’s imagine an NFT marketplace in a metaverse versus an NFT marketplace such as OpenSea. OpenSea is like any traditional shopping site. You sit there by yourself browsing through pages of rectangles with photos, descriptions, prices, and buttons. Although it can be addictive for some, it’s not a very satisfying experience.

Now, imagine a virtual art gallery in a metaverse. Shoppers can walk the halls enjoying all the art together. You can strike up a conversation about the work with the person next to you. You might even be able to hang out with the artists. This is a far more satisfying experience, don’t you think?

This is the direction things are heading, and those who get there first will have a nice head start on the rest of the world.

Ultimately, NFTs are about communities

Selling art in any form is not easy. For every person that might be willing to buy your art, there could be millions more who aren’t interested. If you’re selling art as décor, you might be able to tap into an art gallery or website such as Etsy that has a built-in community. If you’re selling NFTs, you’ll need to build a community of your own.

In our next article, we will talk about the history of NFTs! Until next time! 🙂

The article was written by: Ivan Markov, NFTartXpert